Healthy eating survey: Most Government Ministers are ignoring official health promotion policies on healthy eating and show a lack of concern for Ireland's growing obesity problem, the Labour Party has claimed.
The majority of Ministers do not care whether the staff in their Departments have nutritious meals available to them, the party's spokeswoman on food and agriculture, Dr Mary Upton, said, adding that they were displaying no leadership in relation to the Department of Health's healthy eating campaign. This follows a survey of the food provided for Department staff in canteens and restaurants.
Nine Ministers said private catering firms decided what food was on offer and there was no general policy to seek out locally produced and nutritious food, Dr Upton said. "The replies I received from most Departments were wholly unsatisfactory. Most Ministers are taking no notice of the health promotion policy on healthy eating and are not concerned about what their staff are eating at all."
Some departments surveyed had no restaurant facilities, while the majority contracted their catering out to private firms.
The Tánaiste, Ms Harney, said she had "no function" regarding the decisions taken by the owners who ran the two franchised canteens in the Department of Enterprise. The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, said most of his office's catering was subject to franchise arrangements.
The Minister for Finance, Mr Creevy, said he would "of course encourage people to eat healthy and nutritious food". However he added: "The range, quality and sourcing of the food provided is a matter for the catering firm." The Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, said his department also contracted out its catering.
Dr Upton was particularly critical of the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Ms Coughlan, who said: "I do not set down conditions in relation to the type of food to be provided under these arrangements, nor would I consider it appropriate to do so."
Such a laissez-faire attitude to healthy eating was not good enough, Dr Upton said.
